Vial
by chloe.alice
Summary: Luna Lovegood has a serious moment at Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop.


Madam Puddifoot preoccupied herself by pointing her wand at the muslin drapes and saying, "_Colovaria,_" repeatedly until she hit a pattern that matched the wallpaper perfectly.

"There!" she said finally as she settled on lavender, mauve, and cornflower zigzags. Against the primary-colored polka dots on the lemon wallpaper, the curtains replicated the appearance of an explosion at an Easter egg factory. As a final thought, Madam Puddifoot said, "_Orchideous_." Typically, the spell did nothing more than conjure a small bouquet of flowers, but the elder matron flourished her wand in such a way that every vase in the tea room was instantly filled with carnations to match the curtains and a spray of baby's breath. Carnation garlands also draped from the valances and tied the curtains back.

Young lovers tucked away in the many dark, romantic corners of the tea room plucked the newly-formed flowers from the vases, but Puddifoot paid no mind to them.

"What do you think, love?"

When she heard no response from behind her, she turned to the girl who found her way to the Madam's own personal table every time the students were allowed to visit Hogsmeade. Normally, the pale, wide-eyed girl came bearing a stack of _Quibblers_ and a list of crazy, unsubstantiated-but-possibly-true facts that made Puddifoot smile and gave her something to think about as she went through the motions of a tea house matron. This past week though, all through the springtime break from classes, the girl had been quiet, silently brooding into her tea unless spoken to directly.

"Luna, love, what do you think?" Puddifoot repeated.

"Hmm?" Luna murmured as her gaze lifted from the tea leaves settled at the bottom of her cup. Suddenly, as though released from a spell, her eyes focused and she smiled brightly. "The blue flowers attract doxies," she said in her usual airy voice. "You should make them green instead; it will bring you dwarf plimpies, and they croak the most enchanting love songs."

Puddifoot was about to ask what a plimpy was, but thought better of it. "How are classes, love? Are your studies for the O.W.L.s coming along well?"

The smile that seemed to have been faked a moment ago now appeared more genuine, but that only lowered Madam Puddifoot's spirit. So few took the time to speak to the peculiar girl trapped in the shadow of her father, widely considered in the wizard community to be a lunatic. That Luna should bloom at the most basic of inquiries into her life showed Puddifoot just how neglected she was by her peers.

"I've decided not to study for the O.W.L.s," she said happily, as though she was announcing the greatest of news.

"But Luna," Puddifoot gasped, "however do you expect to do well if you don't study?"

As a matter of habit, the matron tipped her tea kettle over Luna's empty cup, but Luna batted it away before the first drop of hot water could splash into the china. Without explanation for the denial, Luna said, "Why, I already know how I'll do on them; I saw it in a dream. So what is the point of studying?"

Puddifoot chuckled. "I suppose you'll be receiving your O.W.L. in Divination, then?"

Luna looked confused. "No, madam. I'll do positively abysmally in Divination. To tell the truth, I never had the head for it."

Puddifoot noticed that Luna was fussing with a trinket that hung from the zipper of her frilly, rainbow colored jacket. She leaned forward just a bit to catch a glimpse of it, but Luna's hand covered too much of it for a peak to be snuck. "What's that you've got on your jacket?" Puddifoot asked finally, curiosity getting the better of her.

Luna's looked down at her hands, unaware that her fingers were grasping at anything. Her hand opened, revealing a stopped vial that had been strung through the zipper pull by a thin satin ribbon. Inside the vial was a fine, white powder that caught the light and reflected in opalescent tones. "Why, this is moonstone," Luna said after a moment.

"Well, be careful with that," Puddifoot said with a laugh. "I find it left behind here all the time. Dangerous stuff, that. Used in Love Potions and such."

Luna's grey eyes darted away quickly.

"Luna Lovegood!" Puddifoot snapped. "Don't you tell me you're messing with that sort of thing; I thought you were smarter than that!"

Luna's fingers drew back to the tiny vial, and for a moment she was silent. She was so small, Puddifoot thought. She wasn't of any lesser stature than the rest of the girls her age, and her flamboyant attire gave her an impressive presence. Underneath all that, though, Luna was vapor. She drifted in and out of time, and even though it made for an entertaining interlude, it made it easy for those around her to forget that she was just a girl, made of the same stuff all girls are made of.

Luna looked up again. She didn't smile. Her smoky eyes were too bright, too glossy as they focused on something beyond the rickrack curtains. "Do you think Professor McGonagall will let me announce more Quidditch matches? I enjoyed it immensely, and the other students said it was colorful. Too colorful, though. But color is a good thing, right?"

Puddifoot glanced out the same window through which Luna stared so intensely. It faced out the side of the tea house, toward a small residential area. A couple feet from the window, she could see Harry Potter and the Weasley girl. They seemed to be having an intimate conversation.

Puddifoot drummed her memory, remembering that last year she'd seen him in her shop with a different girl, one from Luna's House. Luna mentioned Harry occasionally in her stories, and now that she thought about it, she was sure that Harry had taken Luna to some formal affair at Christmastime. They were good friends, so Puddifoot hadn't thought all that much about it, but Luna's gaze was too intense. Her fingers were grasping at the vial as though it were the only thing keeping her afloat on a rocky sea.

Puddifoot sighed and slid down into the chair next to Luna, and took the girl's hands into her own. "Magic can mend a lot of things," she told Luna, her voice gentle but solid. "It can mend my drapes when the candles get too close, and it can mend the tea cups when they shatter. It can mend broken bones and blemished skin. But neither you nor I nor even the great Dumbledore will ever be able to conjure a spell or a charm or a potion that can mend a broken heart."

Luna slipped a hand free and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. So small and brave, and so young. Tomorrow she'll have completely forgotten that she missed her chance with the Boy Who Lived, Puddifoot knew, but today would hurt horribly. Tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, she'd remember that there was a whole world of boys who lived, and she'd again cherish the friendship, and nothing more, that she shared with Harry Potter.

Luna sniffled once, then stood and yanked the vial from her zipper. "You should keep this," she said as she handed the moonstone dust over to Puddifoot. "They say it wards off the Erlkings."

"Then shouldn't you keep it?"

Luna grinned. "No, I don't think I need it anymore."

Puddifoot watched as Luna drifted out the door and into the bright spring sunshine. Then she looked down into the empty tea cup, the one Luna had studied for so long, that she'd refused to allow to be refilled. While Luna claimed to do poorly in Divination, Puddifoot had made her life in Tessomancy, and recognized immediately the shape to which the tea leaves had clumped at the bottom.

An angel, a symbol for love, but this one had a disconnect all the way down one of the wings, completely severing it from the angel's body. A one winged love, indeed.


End file.
